


Thanks

by deathwailart



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 days of writing challenge: thanks</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanks

She's always had to work hard for every damn thing she's had in her life, half a mother to her sisters with dad away and always aware of the Williams name, what it means to bear that make of shame every day, blighting her career, her father's career. Her father saluting her was one of the proudest moments of her life but one of the saddest too - that it meant so much, that human beings could be so vicious, so petty, so spiteful because hey, someone cared about the human cost for five minutes. It's not that Ash resents so much of her life, she wouldn't be so close to her family without it and sometimes, it saved her from the judgement that she took on the chin as the oldest in the family. Because that's what kids do. They find a weakness, an opening and they go for it.  
  
Spacer kid suited her just fine, breeze in and out just like that. Maybe it's why she got along with Shepard in the first place, spacer kids clicked like that but Shepard is this damn icon. Spacer child of Hannah Shepard, a war hero who kept her team alive earning medals and commendation, hero and impending legend. Well that was what she was then. She saved Ash's ass on Eden Prime, let her aboard the Normandy - no one really wants to have a Williams around, it's why she's worked mediocre awful assignments, shuttled around so she can't embarrass them. But backing down and doing something where she'd maybe be appreciated for her abilities, her work ethic, her attitude? No way in hell, Ashley Williams doesn't back down and she's not going to let the system grind her down that way.  
  
Long story short, Ashley Williams has never said thank you to anyone. Not even sarcastically, it's the principle of it. Everything she has had is hers, her own hard work and even if she'd never made it past gunnery chief that would have been enough, just her work to show the bastards they weren't going to grind her down.  
  
Shepard is the big exception to pretty much everything in her life. Boss lady, hero, returned from the dead, the person who saved Ash's life. (Oh she wanted to punch Shepard after Virmire, after Kaidan because she hit the damn nail on the head, trying to pull the heroic sacrifice that she thought would accomplish _something_ for Abby, Lyn and Sarah, for any kids they had who followed in Ash's footsteps.) She has so much to thank Shepard for. For Eden Prime, for Virmire, for giving her the chance no one else has ever really given Ash and sure, she doesn't agree with everything Shepard has ever done but Shepard is fair - she gives people a chance be they a krogan mercenary, a turian c-sec officer, a quarian on her pilgrimage and an asari researcher, she listens to them, draws them out of their shell.  
  
Sacrifices her life for them.  
  
It hurt when she saw Shepard again on Horizon after those last desperate moments, her hero (not that she'll admit it but Shepard is the soldier every kid wants to be and there are always going to be days where she takes a moment and thinks _I fought alongside her_ , always so damn proud and more) back but working with people Ash hated. People every sane human hated. She might not trust aliens but she doesn't want human supremacy over all others because that doesn't get them anywhere either. At least now though she's managed to bury the hatchet, on equal standing as a Spectre but she'll always have to measure herself against Shepard but she's done more than she ever thought she could and she's respected, fighting the good fight trying to keep the damn galaxy safe even if they can't see past their own petty needs, infighting and bullshit, happy to drown themselves in denial.  
  
She's tried to say thank you to Shepard. On numerous occasions. Shepard downplays it, evades it, turns it back on Ash and that's Shepard's style but sometimes, okay maybe just once, she'd really like to say thank you the way she wants to.  
  
"You need to be more blunt," Garrus says when Ash ends up complaining about it to him and somehow she missed out on Garrus getting his turian batman on, levelling up in his suaveness even if he's still an awkward mess sometimes.  
  
"Throw her up against a wall and tell her?"  
  
"She might like that, you know Shepard."  
  
And she does know Shepard so she says yes to a date (because after everything, after all they've been through it's a date, the first date Ash has had in years) and then to other dates when they have time. She hangs out in the captain's cabin studying all the model ships she's picked up over the past couple of years.  
  
"I've never been able to say something to you," which she of course says watching Shepard's fish swimming back and forth in their huge tank.  
  
"What's that Ash?"  
  
"I have conditions," she replies as she turns, folding her arms and reclining casually, trying not to laugh when Shepard is doing the exact same thing, the little quirk of her lips as she tries not to smirk, one eyebrow arched, an expression Ash loves for reasons she can't quite put her finger on.  
  
"Name them."  
  
"You can't turn this back on me or evade it, do any sort of Shepard speechifying," Ash has no idea where she picked that last bit up from but she moves on, stalking over to the couch like a woman on a mission, "you have to sit there and take it."  
  
"I'm starting to like the sound of that," Shepard retorts and that's another reason Ash loves this woman, the lack of bullshit, the way she's honest and upfront - Ash appreciates that.  
  
"Well you sit there and behave and I'll see what I can do about that." She takes a deep breath. She faced down geth. She faced down Saren. She is a damn Spectre and she can tell her girlfriend (that still sounds juvenile but it works more than partners or she'll feel like they're in a Blasto special) something simple that she's said many times before. But she knows why it's hard. There's never a guarantee anymore that they'll make it back, that they'll both make it through all this, not as the Reapers press at them and she thinks, no she knows, that Shepard has to hear this when she has ungrateful assholes putting their own interests above the collective goal of saving their asses, demanding more and more of Shepard. Even the great Commander Shepard has her limits. "Thank you, I mean it, thank you for...for this. For everything. For you."  
  
It's not often that Shepard is rendered speechless but she is. Ash smiles, not the crazy grin most people would break out at such a moment, just a small smile until Shepard gets to her feet, pulls Ash close and rests her head on her shoulder.  
  
"Do I get to say thank you too?" She asks, the words mumbled into Ash's shoulder as Shepard sags.  
  
Ash considers for a moment and nods. "Yeah, this time only." Shepard huffs out a laugh and sighs, most of her weight being held up by Ash because there's never enough time to sleep and Ash has been woken more times than she wants to admit by Shepard's nightmares or dreams or whatever she wants to call them. "C'mon," she gives Shepard a tug, spins them around and shoves her back on the bed. "Get some sleep."  
  
"I was hoping you'd have more interesting ideas in mind."  
  
"I'll see what I can do."  
  
Shepard laughs again, a little closer to the real laugh Ash remembers, the best sound in the galaxy to her ears.


End file.
